BobAjobb wrote:
It's not necessarily shorter. It may have just yielded locally to 'allow' the bend. It could in fact be even stronger in that area from the work hardening.
I didn't say shorter, indeed if it's bent it has to be longer as it's not in a straight line. And the suggestion it's stronger due to work makes no logical sense as if that were to be the case then all top spec wheels would come with kinks in the spokes 2" from the hub deliberately made to add strength..... Clearly the stresses here have exceeded the elastic limit of the spoke and it's gone to within it's plastic limit. Which has increased the length of the spoke slightly. Possibly by amazing luck the bend and the length increase from the plastic deformation have offset to result in the same tension on the rim which is why it's still true. However, as you ride and that spoke is at the bottom, the loads reduce the spoke tension, and then when that spoke is at the top of the wheel it's tension is slightly greater. Every rotation then the spoke tensions increase and decrease. So that means that the spokes are back to behaving in the elastic range. Sadly once a metal is cold formed (ie through being bent by a derailler / chain) then the high cycle fatigue is reduced. Added to that the differing lengths of spokes now means that the other spokes are going to take more load and so be further into their elastic range each rotation which ultimately reduces life.
Unless you are really meaning specifically strength as opposed and as a tradeoff to durability which is exactly the point I was making - the life of the spokes will be reduced - most likely not this spoke but others either side or 180degrees round the wheel.
And so back to the OP - carry on riding if you want, but sorting now takes the worry away from you waiting for the spokes to start pinging which they certainly will do earlier than if you hadn't done that. May be in the next week, next month or 2 years away. But sorting now will need one or two spokes. Leave it until it does ping will put you on a slope to changing all the spokes.
(FWIW then I started my own wheel building about 20 years ago when commuting 30 miles a day with a heavy bike and panniers with laptop, work clothes, gym kit. You couldn't avoid hitting a pothole every now and again and so spokes would go, wheels need re-truing. And I couldn't manage to wait for the delay of bike shops, so learnt to do it myself using the Sheldon brown website instructions).